The Displaced Alchemist and the ExPatriot Flyboy
by IsmAsm
Summary: We never got to see the Alt!Roy Mustang in CoS. In an AU ending to the first anime/movie, Roy Mustang helps Edward Elric return home, and involves himself in a number of affairs along the way. This is not yaoi.


Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist. If I did, we probably wouldn't have gotten to Chapter 106 in almost a decade, as any of you who read Raising Roy know.

Characters: Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye, and the rest of the unit.

Warnings: None

Summary: Alt!Roy Mustang wakes up to rain and a conversation.

Author's Note: I'm sooooooooooooooooo sorry for all of you who were so nice to Raising Roy. I will update, I promise. Maybe even tomorrow, if I'm lucky, but this weekend certainly. This is my "No, I have not died!" apology-fic. My brain formulated the idea of Roy Mustang being a pilot in our universe when I found out that the great Hiromu Arakawa named the character after the P-51 Mustang, which is a WWII-era fighter plane, and a wicked beast of one. So let's just say that the character named the plane and not the other way around. I also, I ship Royai. Don't like, don't read.

Chapter 1

Ex-Patriot

Roy Mustang awoke to an accustomed warmth and water dripping in his face, neither of which boded well for his morning. He groggily opened his eyes, only to be promptly hit in the eyeball with more water. He swore under his breath, but apparently his erstwhile bedmate heard him, because light laughter filtered in from above him.

God, he hated the rain.

It came rolling in through the canvas tarp he had tied to the lower wing of his Airco DH.4, his old bomber during the war, and secured to the ground, forming a sort of tent. It was the trickling, wet, insistent kind that could drip its way through anything, even canvas that had been treated for this sort of thing. He sighed irritably; he might as well get up now.

Roy stepped out into the gray morning light and shivered as the rain rolled down his back. His hair was quickly plastered to his forehead. He looked up at the sky, but was treated to the infinitely more pleasing sight of long wet blonde hair glinting in the half-light and trailing down a shapely back, that was for once free of the padded leather flight jacket it was encased in much of the time.

Ah, his only regret about that decision.

Following the end of the Great War, Roy had resigned his commission with the US Army Air Corps, bought his old airplane using the funds he had saved up during the war (when he obviously wasn't spending it), and proceeded to fly around the world with the girl he had left behind at her father's grave before signing up. Riza Hawkeye's only issue with the whole thing was that, as young woman, she hadn't been allowed to go with him to war.

She was quite willing to join him on his escapades, he had realized when he asked, throwing her arms around him and kissing the breath from him. So now they had joined a growing group of war veterans in what would eventually be called the Lost Generation. However, instead of writing depressing literary masterpieces on the decline of good old American values and the insistence on forgetting the worst war in the history of the world, they flew around in an old bomber that had been shot at by German fighters a few too many times and generally upset the morals of the 20th Century by sleeping together without having actually married.

The only downside to the whole arrangement was that Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye spent so much time in the air in those blasted jackets that he rarely saw her lovely figure. Well, rarely except for those nights in the barely-lit, make-shift tent, naturally.

The fact that she had left her hair down surprised him too, though he supposed it should not have. They had a meeting in Berlin, and once they breakfasted, they would leave this field to head into town. Riza had dressed for the occasion too, sporting a simple but beautiful skirt and blouse.

He climbed up next to her and kissed her cheek as a good morning. When she didn't respond at all, he leaned around for her lips, but ended up with her palm again his mouth. Roy scowled when he realized she was on the radio, probably confirming details for their meeting.

"Kain?" he asked. She nodded, fiddling with a dial.

"He told us to contact him this morning to get a meeting location, if you'll recall. He's found something big this time."

"Kain's not usually so secretive; he must be worried about the objects of his wire taps finding out about him. Do you know what he was looking into?" Roy asked.

Riza sighed and shook her head. "He's not saying anything on the subject, but Jean and Vato mentioned something about the Nazi Party."

"Idiot kid," muttered Roy. "Political games are much too dangerous to play with Germany in the economic state it's in. What's he thinking?"

Riza smiled faintly. "He probably gets the idea from you, since you travel the world and stick your nose in where it doesn't belong."

"You mean from us," Roy laughed. "Since you're with me all the time."

Riza rolled her eyes. "No, I mean you. I just come along because you need someone who can man your machine guns. And because you'll get yourself killed without me."

"And you think I'm devilishly handsome and you couldn't stand the eighteen months we were apart."

Tinny laughter from the radio interrupted them. "I wouldn't push it, if I were you, Mustang," drawled a voice.

"Go back to Dallas, Havoc," snapped Roy, who was irritated at the interruption. "Berlin is in enough economic shambles without you here."

"Not so," interjected another voice, this one clipped and precise. "If Jean is here, he's purchasing much more than his fair share of German cigarettes, thus improving their economy."

Laughter echoed again, this time joined by Roy and Riza. "Damn straight, Vato. Old war habits will save this country yet," said Havoc.

"Even if the women continually reject you, Havoc?" came a third voice.

"That's not my fault! They don't like me because us Yanks beat them in the war!"

"Keep telling yourself that," replied the third voice.

"Jean, Heymans, please," pleaded yet another voice. "I don't have much time!"

"You worry too much, Fuery," Havoc said.

Roy felt the need to bring this conversation back to order. "Kain is right, Havoc. Some of us have lives to attend to, and don't need to listen to you griping about how you can never get a girlfriend."

Jean subsided with a grumble about some "arrogant flyboy having to neck." Roy decided to ignore that, though the thought was more than appealing. Riza turned an attractive shade of pink, which made listening to what Kain had to say even more difficult.

"Look, Roy, how does lunch at Vato's place sound?" said Kain very quickly.

"Why Vato?" asked Riza.

"Because Vato is boring," Breda said, ignoring Falman's annoyed, "Hey!" "No one suspects him of harboring people who tap wires."

"And it's his turn to feed you two, anyway," Havoc said. "He hasn't had to deal with you after a Transatlantic flight yet."

"What time?" Roy asked.

"How does 12:30 sound to you?" asked Falman.

"Works for us."

Fuery jumped in suddenly. "Look, could we take our sweet time over lunch? Hasn't it occurred to any of you that if I can tap someone's conversation, then they could do the same to us?"

"Fine, Fuery," Roy conceded. "We'll talk later."

The radio went dead. Roy turned to Riza with a smirk. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"How long do you think it will take us to walk to Berlin?"

She glanced back at the city. "An hour, tops?"

Roy's smirk blossomed into a full-on grin. "Necking now or later?"

Riza blushed, but she too was smiling. "Definitely now," she said, and reached for his jacket.

Secondary Author's Note: "Old war habits" refers to the adage, "Smoke if you've got 'em" though I don't remember which war that came from. Necking is 20's slang, and for those of you who don't know, the Lost Generation includes some obscure authors like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.


End file.
